I am often asked to explain to both agency colleagues and clients what the Behavioral Insights team does, and how it differs from other kinds of research.

Here is what I tell them…

Years ago, one strategically minded agency leader thought that he could do a much better job helping his pharmaceutical marketing and advertising clients if he knew what was really said when physicians and patients got together for their visits. He was right. Years later, we have recorded over 4,000 office visits and 8,000 corresponding post-visit interviews with healthcare professionals in over 20 therapeutic categories, along with their patients and often their loved ones—creating a whole lot of words and actions to analyze. Now we have a much better understanding of physician and patient dialogue and behavior—and a lot of insight into what goes on during real-world interactions in healthcare.

Over time we have broadened our offerings, but overall, we conduct primary research in real-world settings that focuses on healthcare dialogue and behavior. We do this by accessing techniques such as ethnography to observe our targets in physicians’ offices, their homes and work places, and while on the go. We analyze the data with sociolinguistic techniques. By monitoring social media, we can even take a look at what they write about online in open forums, and analyze their dialogue. We know that when a person feels less inhibited by the constraints they often experience when talking with healthcare professionals in person, they are able to ask questions and raise topics they normally shy away from.

From years of studying human behavior, we also know that what people say they do and what they actually do are not always aligned. We have heard it all, from asthma patients saying their daily lives are not impacted yet they gave away their beloved pet and ripped out their carpets, to spinal cord injury patients saying they accept their condition, but refusing to put a ramp in front of their home. We look to get under the surface and understand what is really happening, where there are gaps in communication, and what the intended and unintended consequences of these interactions are.

We don’t stop there. Does the term computational linguistics sound intriguing to you? If so, you’re not alone. We can take a look at millions of words by using industry publications and see what words are most often used together and the frequency of words used to help your clients describe and own the scientific and clinical story.

Knowing so many of my colleagues are curious by nature, I am guessing you really want to know what we learned from our many years of doing this research! Well, you don’t have to wait much longer because we have a white paper, Top 7 Insights from Years of Observing Real-world Healthcare Communication, coming out shortly from our very own sociolinguist, Katy Hewett!

Of course, you can also just ask us! In fact, if you work directly with clients, make sure to talk to us about how we can share these exciting and unique offerings with them, and discuss what benefits these different offerings have for your brand.

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Last week, our UK healthcare marketing agency moved into new purpose-built offices on London’s South Bank, and for the first time we are alongside our colleagues in other Ogilvy agencies. I believe Churchill’s view on how buildings inevitably shape us, and our behaviours, is going to be particularly relevant during this exciting new phase of our agency’s evolution.

Much work and planning obviously goes into any major office relocation, but never has this been truer than of the journey we have taken in designing our new office environment. Supported along the way by experts in office design, human behaviour, space planning and collaborative working, we believe we have moved our team into an environment that truly has the ability to change the way we work.

Some of the main themes – observed here already in our first week – relating to the way our buildings and environment shape us and our work include:

New neighbour, new perspective: The office is designed with barely any ‘fixed desk’ positions. Everyone is encouraged to sit in a different place every day. This approach, although perhaps feared by some initially, has been a unanimous success. On a daily basis we hear about the benefit of drawing on new perspectives, “getting a different point of view,” or just learning from what someone else is doing. Fixed desking already seems a distant ”missed opportunity” from the past.

Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate: In our new space, gone are the days of endless banks of desks, replaced instead by a range of different zones and work settings: café tables, sofas, booths, work pods and benches. The single aim: drive collaboration. And it works. Provide people with the spaces to meet, share and grow and they do it…relentlessly. Already we see that what used to be achieved via 30 emails and half a day, can be improved upon by a 15-minute chat on the sofa.

Break the silos: Ogilvy Healthworld has long held the belief that the best work comes from channelling neutral thinking and big ideas that span all marketing disciplines. And yet the agency’s physical”geography” has in some ways lagged behind and remained siloed. Until now. The completely open-plan setting we now have does not speak of any ”divisions” or ”departments,” just of a truly integrated business. And it’s this integration that will in turn lead to even bigger and better thinking for our clients.

Be inspired: And finally, it’s amazing to see already the refreshed energy and passion that is derived simply by ”being” in a different place. We are lucky, yes, in being situated along London’s ”creative mile” on the South Bank, surrounded by leading arts and cultural establishments and an inspiring creative ”vibe.” And we are lucky too to have one of the most inspiring views of new and old London stretched out in front of us across the Thames. But these facts alone are not what drive the greatest levels of invigoration. The mere fact we are in a new space, with new and interesting stimuli, further supports the notion that new buildings, fresh environments, ”change” us.

So, in conclusion, we believe our new building genuinely has started to ”shape us” already, and will continue to do so. It feels like a rich and precious time for the agency and its staff to feed off each other in different ways and be inspired by our new environment to search for greatness for our clients and their brands.

We invite any current employees, future employees, clients and prospects alike, to come and experience this invigorating environment for themselves, and experience a little of what Churchill had in mind.

Who knew that Mark Twain, one of my favorite authors, knew a thing or two about market research? Proof is in one of his great quotes “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”

That’s a comment on discipline, and it takes on a whole different—and cautionary—meaning when it’s applied to primary market research.

As a market researcher, my first order of business is to help clients “get the facts first.” The discipline of gathering the right facts from the right stakeholders―and in the right way at the right time, to boot―allows us to not only uncover our customer’s drivers and motivators, but also to help inspire changes in behavior.

There are certain activities and processes that are important for us, as an agency, to shepherd our clients through. For instance, we don’t want brand team members driving the creative according to their personal beliefs and perceptions about the product. Rather, we want our clients to clearly hear their customers’ voices, and shape their brand strategy accordingly, with our guidance.

As market researchers, we help ensure that clients “hear” their customers by answering 4 key questions:

1. What are the right facts?

The right facts can be as simple as the customer’s geography (physical location) and demography (age, gender, occupation, socioeconomic status), or as complex as their behavior (product consumption level, use patterns, frequency, and loyalty), and psychographic profile (interests, attitudes, and opinions)

By targeting the specific questions that our clients need to answer, and by understanding how that data are meant to inform business decisions, we determine the right facts to gather

2. Who are the right stakeholders?

Pharmaceutical clients often believe they have a “physician problem,” but chances are they could also have a patient, caregiver, payer, or pharmacist problem (And I could go on!). Sometimes it’s even more than one problem! Healthcare is a sector defined by intricate interdependencies among a long list of stakeholders that ultimately impact product usage

Well-designed market research takes into account all relevant stakeholders, including them as the research questions dictate. We often talk with clients about, at minimum, viewing patients, physicians, and payers as three legs supporting their product’s stool—the “length” (eg, importance) of those legs can vary by therapeutic area, but they all need to be taken into account when planning brand strategy

3. What is the right way to gather the facts given budgets and timelines?

Do we need one-on-one conversations with customers where we can take the time and latitude to investigate the “why’s” behind responses, and explore topics that might be challenging to articulate in front of others?

Do we need small groups of customers to talk with us about our clients’ products’ features and benefits, and the extent to which they produce functional, emotional, and/or personal benefits?

Do we need to use projective exercises in which ambiguous or vaguely defined stimuli grant customers’ considerable freedom in their responses? Images and metaphors can sometimes reveal a deeper dimension of thought/decision-making processes and feelings than objective, “correct” responses to explicit research questions

Do we need to survey a large number of customers, and on a big enough scale so we can obtain results that are statistically significant?

Do we need to survey various types of customers to understand the number and size of diverse market segments, including what those segments look like?

Do we need to deploy mobile or app-based methodologies that allow us to track customer thinking and behavior in real time?

4. When is the right time to gather the facts?

Sometimes we want to conduct research, either to take the market pulse on the heels of a significant marketplace event, or to get a “snapshot” of the market at a particular moment

Sometimes we want to be in the field when the market is quiet, so we can get a baseline against which to compare the impact of future disruptive events

Sometimes we want to longitudinally gather the same metrics from the same customers at certain intervals to get a long-term understanding of customer behavior and product usage

Sometimes we simply have materials or concepts to test. This might warrant multiple rounds of research, depending on customer response

Contrary to Mr. Twain’s memorable comment, the second order of business for market researchers is to make sure that clients do not distort those facts to fit their own view of their marketplace–or the marketplace they want instead of the one they have.

It’s therefore our job not just to provide the facts, but to give them meaning and to make actionable recommendations. The beauty of being part of the larger Ogilvy CommonHealth organization is that we have a wide and deep network of resources to help us round out our interpretation.

Drawing on our own backgrounds in multiple therapeutic areas, and working closely with our account team counterparts, optimizes our point of view on the research. Having our secondary research, data analytics, and digital colleagues weigh in allows us to ensure that our recommendations are deep and broad, and showcases our capabilities as an integrated agency.

Consider how primary market research can help your organization’s brand teams to get the right facts first (distortion-free!), and use that data as a platform on which to build robust strategies that firmly stake your brands’ positioning in the marketplace.

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With all but one or two award shows done and dusted for the year, I can honestly say that I have been delighted to see the standard of creativity in healthcare grow from strength to strength. It’s been inspiring, but at the same time it’s been frustrating.

Recently I judged at one of the major healthcare award shows along with some of the industry’s best—people I respect deeply.

We had some interesting conversations around a few of the entries. The main discussion point being, is this really health?

Saving dogs, a hashtag for mums about how amazing their child is, helping hungry people or recruiting medical staff for the armed forces—for me seems broader than health or not even health at all.

We did discuss the fact that it lifted the game in terms of thinking and execution, but it was acting as a guide stick of where we need to be rather than being a true health entry.

But do these types of entries make the interactive visual aid that has been under the red pen of medical advisors feel boring? Does it make the print ad idea that has made it through the treacherous journey of a pharmaceutical marketing department and research group feel flat? Does it make the medical education program that the regulatory body has scrutinised to the inch of its life look dull?
The answer is yes.

There is no place for pharmaceutical work in a current healthcare awards show. If it isn’t bringing you on the brink of tears or changing the world as we know it, it won’t get a real look in. It will be blindsided.

So should we have a healthcare awards show? Why not simply have a health category in the mainstream shows?

Think we know the answer to that one.

The bigger question is (and part of the reason why award shows were there in the first place), how are we going to lift pharmaceutical communications to a better standard? How are we going to inspire true healthcare agencies that live and breathe health every day?

I believe they deserve to be judged in a very different way.
The idea and great execution, without a doubt should be there. But pharmaceutical communications goes deeper than that. It’s the strategy that creatively and intelligently weaves its way through the minefield of regulations and treatment indications. The medical writing that’s taken highly scientific information and made it code-compliant yet highly persuasive to a cynical physician.

So with all this in mind, I believe we do need an awards show for healthcare, but it has to be very different from the shows we currently have. They are mostly celebrating work that’s for the good of man (or animal) kind and I believe you could tack anything to that and call it health.

Pharma is a weird and wonderful world and a very specialised one, so when it comes to judging creativity, should it not be seen through a slightly different lens?

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“Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn’t do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.”

-Vince Lombardi

Well, it’s football season, so what better way to start things off than with a coach who understood the roots of winning.

While football season is only with us when the air cools and the kids put on their backpacks to return to school, pitch season is always upon us.

For those of us who are pitch junkies, it is an amazing blend of S&M-brink-of-pleasure-and-pain that makes the experience so fulfilling. There is a magnificent energy that, if harvested correctly, can have your team humming along towards a victory at the finish line.

Recently, I was part of a winning team that came together perfectly, so I thought it would be interesting to showcase what went right and provide a few guideposts to follow on your next pitch adventure.

1. Don’t Check Your Ego at the Door

We always hear that to work as a team, you need to tone the ego down a bit. I’m not so sure this is true. Keeping your ego in place can elevate the work and push others on your team to do the same. Challenging each other while still respecting team members can make all the horrible ideas fall by the wayside. Remember, ego doesn’t mean you’re always right. It just means you are confident in yourself. If everyone’s feeling the confidence and not being threatened by it, victory shall be had.

2. Account People Are Creative

Creative doesn’t just mean fancy words and amazing visuals. In our industry, it calls for a deep understanding of what the client is looking to do with their product: Do they want to create a new category or separate it from their competitors? What impact can they make and what space do they want to play in? This is creative thinking, so if you see it this way, if you make the Account lead’s brain part of this process, your creative will be elevated with a strong reasoning behind it. Remember, our Account friends don’t live to fill in boxes of spreadsheets. They’re here to be part of the fun. Let them play!

3. Digital Is Not Separate From Creative

We have a strong tendency on pitches to not bring Digital in until the last minute. At this point, they are usually asked to produce a few “tactics” to help elevate the overall big idea. This is like constructing a building and then asking someone to come in and give their advice on how to decorate the lobby. They won’t have a vested interest in the finished product. Digital folks are up on the latest technology trends, so there their tactics greatly help to push the creative to a higher level. If they understand the science and are part of the medical download, their chops will be even more valuable. Bring them in early.

4. Your Medical Director Should Be Along for the Whole Ride

The science leads on your project are not just people clicking through PowerPoint slides, explaining disease-state information. Understand that they are an integral part of this industry because they bring what they’ve learned in the lab to the people. We, the pitch team, are their first point of contact, so embrace their information. Ask questions. Probe. It will come through to the client. Medical Directors have tremendous minds to explore, so if you make them your partner instead of just your teacher, you’ll find the relationship to be a boost to all. When it comes to pitch time, they are going to be the ones answering the client’s most challenging questions, so it’s best they feel like they have contributed to all aspects of what’s being presented.

5. Your Creative Team Is Always Listening

This is where all of the science, strategy and direction comes together as an idea. Good creative is the combination of thoughts into a beautiful idea that has a life of its own. While embracing an idea is important, it’s essential that the ownership of the idea go to the pitch, not the creative team. Beautiful creative is an offering to the greater good of the team. It’s a manifestation of everyone’s hard work. To perform at a heightened level, the creative team needs to have all the possible information available to them. Invite them to meetings and let them hear your internal debates. You never know where a creative idea is going to come from.

There you have it. The quote at the top by Lombardi is the overarching theme that can guide your pitch. There is that intangible bond that all pitch team members feel with each other that comes through to the client. Remember, they want to have confidence in the team that will be carrying out their vision for their products.

Nothing is more potent than the fuel of love. And perhaps a drink or two along the way to help get you across the goal line.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:Questions? Comments? You can contact the author directly at blog@ochww.com.Please allow 24 hours for response.

Many of the conversations you hear or take part in about our industry are focused totally on change. Changes on the client side, the rise of procurement, the move to digital, the uptake of mobile, the impact of social. Changes on the agency side, the focus on project management, the growth of planning and digital strategy, the redefinition of account management.

You name it, we’ve discussed it. We’ve talked about change and, better yet, we’ve done something about it—transforming the agency across an untold number of parameters, with more surely to come.

And rightfully so. Change is the constant in our world. And if we don’t change with—or ahead of the current—we will be left behind. Even if we were the world’s best buggy whip manufacturers, we’d still wind up being the world’s best buggy whip manufacturers, only we’d be sitting in Google self-driving cars taking us to an ever-dwindling set of client meetings.

However, what I don’t hear—and I don’t think we talk about enough—are some of the things that haven’t changed and should never change. Like building positive, lasting, and trusting relationships with the client.

A couple of days ago, I was on the first floor when a gaggle of clients came into the building. Holding open the door for the conference room area was an Account person.

Each client literally stopped and hugged her and the level of excitement—seeing a trusted friend, colleague, and teammate—was wonderful to see. She had a visible, audible, and palpably positive relationship with her entire client team. I thought to myself, that’s one aspect of this business that has never changed and should never change.

That type of relationship opens the door to better results in every way. A connection is made on a human and personal level, not just a purely transactional exchange. Information flow and sharing is unhindered. Confidence that, should the need arise, gives room to explain why or how something unanticipated occurred. Inherent belief in a partnership focused on having all ships rise, that success is a common cause.

So here’s a short list of some things that shouldn’t change in a service industry, especially for an Agency, because their importance hasn’t diminished and will not in the future:

Google has announced significant changes in their paid search engine advertising policies with regard to pharmaceutical products. The change that we are addressing here deals with vanity URLs, and their respective redirecting ads, that will take place in January 2016. The bottom line is that Google will no longer allow vanity URLs in an effort to provide consumers with more “clarity and transparency.”

Google has a long-standing policy prohibiting any ads where the destination URL differs dramatically from the display URL. Please note, this prohibition is not exclusively for pharmaceutical products—it has been Google’s practice across the board. Up until now, the pharmaceutical industry had been the exception to the rule. The reason for the exception was because in many cases, information seekers will not know the name of a drug, but will understand and know the symptoms/disease state information.

FDA background information
Previously, the FDA never objected to marketers utilizing vanity URLs and/or redirecting ads. These URLs/ads typically do not directly promote the name of a prescription product. Instead they lend themselves more to a disease state or descriptive nature, and then redirect users to another location or URL where they will see branded information specific to the prescription drug and/or disease state. Vanity URLs/redirecting ads are not exclusive to online SEM use, and are also used in print ads, television commercials, billboards, postcards, and more.
In March 2009, the FDA sent out 14 violation letters regarding search engine marketing practices of 48 brands. Thirteen of those violations referred to SEM ads running on Google. The FDA noted four types of violations in 2009:

Google’s reaction—what exactly is Google implementing?
Beginning in January 2016, Google will not permit pharmaceutical advertisers to have vanity URLs (such as “TreatmentforConditionX.com”) that redirect users to a BrandName.com website.

Pharmaceutical marketers will have the following options for vanity URLs:Option 1

Sample ad showing company name as URL

Option 2
They can add “.com” to the company name.

Sample ad showing company name plus .com as URL

Option 3a (for prescription drugs, biologics, and vaccines)
They can display the phrase “Prescription treatment website” as the display URL.

All of these ads will be able to drive to pages on the brand.com or brandhcp.com website.

At the present time, this change has been instituted by Google only, and doesn’t lend itself to print, television, or other advertising mediums.

What does this mean for our clients?
Review and reassessment of live and proposed Google SEM campaigns where clients utilize vanity URLs need to be completed as soon as possible. New campaigns need to take these new rules into consideration during the tactical planning phase. Funds can be shifted to Yahoo and Bing, however there is the possibility that they may also follow suit.

Google has indicated a willingness to work with pharmaceutical clients to minimize potential negative impact to paid search campaign performance. Testing of the new formats will determine which type of units work best with various campaigns.

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In a service industry, many of us live and die by the mantra, “The client’s always right.” We have long understood and served our role as agency partners and know that we need to passionately support our clients’ efforts.

But is it acceptable to challenge the clients’ wisdom and tell them from time to time that the path they want to take will not result in the best outcomes? That they should take greater risks and push themselves and their brands to greater heights? That they should not accept mediocre results when they can achieve greatness? That they should stop doing what the others are doing and break away from the pack?

Absolutely—this is our job, this is what true client partners should want and expect. We cannot simply nod our heads in approval if we truly care about our clients and the brands we support. We need to tell the truth―backed up with data, customer insights and market knowledge—and state it with conviction. When it’s out, the client will ultimately determine which direction to proceed, but they will do it knowing the potential “watch outs” or barriers to its success, and we can then work together to be armed with the ultimate plan.

It has been my experience that clients do appreciate partners who show passion, conviction and a commitment to doing what they believe is right. Most are not looking for order-takers or yes-men (and if they are, you may want to consider working with a new client).

In my office, I have a sign that says, “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.” It’s not there to remind me that I’m always right—it’s a daily reminder to stand up for the brand and what you believe…always, even if it’s not necessarily popular. Of course, it’s critical to be able to back it up and deliver with diplomacy, grace and experience. In the end, the client drives the ultimate decision, and as their partner, we align, support them and drive to deliver the very best.

My best client relationships have been based on trust, truth and transparency, and respecting that it works both ways. There is immense power, transformative ideas and inspired problem solving that come from collective diverse thinking and challenging the status quo. Remember, in the words of David Ogilvy, “We only get a spark when the stone and flint are moving in opposite directions.”

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For me it is fitness. Running, triathlon, setting goals, eating clean, and having a training plan. That’s the glue that keeps it together for me, the hub around which my world revolves. When I am working towards a new goal, it makes me more balanced, positive and happy.

For others it’s other physical activity: yoga, cross-fit, hiking. Or other ways of being healthy: being a vegan, eating paleo, meditation. Or for you, it could be external: your pet, your children, your significant other. Your house, your car, your boat. It’s what you brag about, how you improve yourself, the destination and the journey. We all have something that feeds and rewards us, holds us together in mind and body and spirit. That’s our glue. One key to success and balance is to figure out what, exactly, your glue is.

So what is the glue at Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide? Or rather, who?

Who is usually the first one in the office, and the last to leave? Who can rattle off the status of two dozen jobs from memory in 10 minutes during hot sheet? Who do we see in the corridors lugging those big job bags from floor to floor, securing, organizing or maintaining job cards, status reports, cover sheets, portal links, med/legal submissions, tagging and linking, night coverage plans, weekend plans, job number lists, finance reports, archiving, uploading files, downloading files, launches, RFPs, pitches, comps, spec sheets….

The glue that holds an ad agency together is the Traffic Coordination department, now known as Project Coordination (PC). PC is the hub of it all—from inception to completion, this group shepherds jobs from manuscript to release. PC works with every department—edit, copy, art, studio, account, business management, finance, project management, and production. If you don’t know something about an account, ask PC. There’s no better launch pad for new account executives or other staff positions at our agency than PC.

PC is a great place to learn, and a great place to stay. It’s everyone else’s glue, and it’s what makes us whole. It’s my glue too. What’s yours?

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Remember the Doritos slogan, “Crunch all you want, we’ll make more!”? What a mantra, supply and demand. So simple. So obvious.

Sure, prescriber demand plays a role in how available some drugs are, but at the end of the day health plans and formulary P&T committees within hospitals and large practices make category decisions that effect drug availability for patients and directly impact prescribing behavior. These formulary decisions aren’t made in a vacuum, and they can impact your brands, your marketing goals, and play a huge role in getting a leg up in today’s market.

So what do you know about all this? If your client came to you tomorrow in a competitive market situation—multiple new branded entrants, generic domination, or patient abandonment at the pharmacy—and they couldn’t get a foothold, what would you tell them? How would you break that wall? How do you partner with your clients to fulfill your brand’s true market destiny?

Consider what the payer marketing unit can bring to the table for you and your clients. More and more we hear our clients talk about access challenges broadly, issues with patient co-pays, or prior authorizations and step edits getting in the way of reaching marketing goals. In this changing healthcare environment there is so much to consider that plays a role in prescriber decision making, it goes well beyond the clinical profile of your brand. The smarter we all are regarding the holistic considerations of a brand, the better we can show our value as a marketing partner and offer uniquely impactful solutions to our clients.

This is where the Power of Payer comes in. The payer marketing units at Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide want to help provide you with a strong background on health plan and environmental issues to more effectively reach your client’s marketing goals. We are actively working towards open house events for Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide in NJ and NY where we can share information specific to two hot topics:

Emerging healthcare models: What are they? How do they hold the keys to success in the market? What should we know about them? Better understand how they act and what these actions mean to our clients and their brands.

Payer for newbies: An overview of what a payer is. Who are payer customers and manufacturer clients? How do payer decisions impact overall market sales goals and category usage? Why do we need to consider them when building brand plans and overcoming marketing hurdles?

As part of the Power of Payer open houses, we will also showcase some of the unique work we have done to achieve market success as well as answer any questions you may have about the payer customer, unique challenges your brand may be facing, or just have a fun discussion around environmental trends!

Watch for more information and then mark your calendars to join us for the Power of Payer open houses.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:Questions? Comments? You can contact the author directly at blog@ochww.com. Please allow 24 hours for response.